SUS workers missed an average of 5 weeks from work

Between 2018 and 2023, absenteeism among healthcare workers corresponded to the “estimated drop” of 17,500 professionals. Absences increased over the years, but in 2024 they decreased.

One from the Center for Planning and Evaluation of Public Policies shows that, on average, SUS workers missed 5 weeks of work, in addition to the days off and vacations to which they are entitled, according to data collected between 2018 and 2023.

The objective of the investigation was to trigger in the Ministry of Health “a more detailed reflection to assess the causes underlying absenteeism and its evolution, and to identify and reach consensus on public policy measures to mitigate this phenomenon“, reads the website.

Over the 6 years analyzed by the study, there was a gradual increase in the number of absences: they went from 3.2 million per day in 2018 to almost 4 million in 2023, says the newspaper. In 2023, the average number of absences per year was 26 dias.

The number is high when compared to the national average, which in 2023, according to the magazine, was 24 absences from work per year.

This absenteeism corresponds, according to the report, to a “estimated drop” of 17,500 professionals in the SNS, equating these absences to the number of hours worked by a professional.

But the real peak (29 days of absence per year) was in 2022and the pandemic would have been to blame. “The data clearly shows the impact of the pandemic on the increase in absences from work, with a reduction in 2021-22 post-COVID, but ‘stabilizing’ at higher levels than those seen pre-pandemic”, explains the report.

However, according to , 2024a year not included in the study, was a year in which absences fell. THE number of absences from work decreased to pre-pandemic levels.

Despite everything, the president of the Portuguese Association of Hospital Administrators (APAH) assures the Public, Xavier Barretothis data “should be looked at with concern”, and adds: “I imagine it is related to phenomena of burnout and overload of work.”

As women are the ones who miss work the most (but there are more women than men working in the SUS), for reasons of providing support for children (and those who do it more for this reason are younger women, under 45).

The report mentions that this data must be carefully looked at, in order to avoid a “disruption of health services and overload of professionals”.